The use of renewable energy resources continues to be an important factor in satisfying energy demands while substantially reducing environmental impacts. Solar, hydropower, and wind resource technologies, for example, continue to decrease in cost and increase in efficiency, while practically eliminating adverse environmental effects. Many conventional renewable recourse energy generation technologies, however, require large amounts of capital and/or real estate to implement. With respect to wind generation facilities, for example, typical windmill style, tower-mounted rotors may be expensive to build and/or may be required to be sited on large parcels of land having extensive wind resources.
Other forms of wind generation systems have employed wind turbines held aloft by buoyant gas balloons and/or kites. Theses systems may, for example, take advantage of more prevalent and/or consistent wind resources located at altitudes not realizable by most tower-mounted structures. Even these types of systems, however, may be unwieldy, expensive, and/or not practicable in certain applications. For these and other reasons, typical wind resource electrical generation systems may be undesirable.
Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods for tethered wind turbines that address these and other problems found in existing technologies.